


Little Soldier Boy.

by FeliciaAmelloides



Series: A Oneshot a Day... [216]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Songfic, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-21 10:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15555474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaAmelloides/pseuds/FeliciaAmelloides
Summary: A drabble from the days of Lu Ten, and the war he faced.





	Little Soldier Boy.

**Author's Note:**

> There aren’t enough fanfics about Lu Ten in my opinion.
> 
> Hope you like it~
> 
> ((Just realised shortly after posting this that Lu Ten should probably be a general or higher rank than he is in this oneshot- I’m really sorry for the inconsistency!))

Winter came early that year, as if to warn the men on the battlefield to turn back already, go home. Many of them wanted to; some even tried. But it wasn’t up to them in the end. Those who tried were either sent back or stabbed.

With the first snowfall of the year came a blizzard of ash due to the amount of fire raging through the battlefield. People were screaming endlessly as they were mowed down by the enemy, or sometimes by their own side. The snow and ash mixing together made it hard to see, hard to feel. No one knew why they were fighting anymore.

One day, a small group of soldiers- all that remained of a larger battalion- stopped by a brook to rest for a few minutes and regroup. It was a pretty place, with a few trees still bravely withstanding the oncoming slaughter while the water ran onwards towards the sea. A little waterfall trickled into the stream where the ground dipped. One of the soldiers, Lu Ten, had always been fascinated by such things and spent the entire break gazing at the plunge pool where tiny shells gathered. Amongst the shells were a few loose leaves from the trees, connected by a single wily vine. 

It was times like these when Lu Ten would wonder what the point of it all was. He’d never wanted to fight in the war, but his peers had all been joining the army and he’d thought it might be nice to defend the Fire Nation’s honour alongside them. His father, a seasoned soldier himself, had told him not to go, had fought against him for days begging him not to leave. But he’d done so anyway. Look where that had got him.

Lu Ten sighed as he watched one of the shells break free from the miniature plunge pool and surge forwards along the stream. Another soon took its place, dredged up from the bottom of the brook. He wished he was one of those shells, free and without fear. Then again, a shell was just the corpse of some unfortunate creature. 

Then again, would he rather be dead and free or alive yet forced to kill people?

He didn’t know. It was all so complicated. If only he’d listened to his father...

The break was over too soon, and the soldiers marched onwards into the heat of battle with heavy hearts and cold feet.

Lu Ten already had the slightest suspicion that he would never see that brook again. 

Little did he know he was right.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while thinking of the song ‘Leaves From The Vine’, so I guess it’s sort of a songfic? Actually, I wasn’t planning on writing about Lu Ten when I first started writing it. It was going to be nonfandom, ambiguous and set in the real world, but as I wrote it sort of became an AtLA fic. Hopefully it turned out alright anyway.
> 
> Prompt- Nostalgia.
> 
> As well as the YouTuber Nostalgia Critic serving as a constant reminder of AtLA (I’ve seen his excellent review of The Last Airbender more times than I’d like to admit), the song ‘Leaves From The Vine’ has always made me feel both sad and a little nostalgic, so I decided it suited the prompt well.
> 
> Original Number- 146.


End file.
